The present application relates to an imaging apparatus suitable for acquisition of parallax images for stereoscopic viewing use, for example.
Various types of imaging apparatuses have been previously proposed and developed. As an example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2001-61165 describes an imaging apparatus configured to include an image-pickup lens, a liquid crystal shutter, an image-pickup device, and an image processing section. In this imaging apparatus, the liquid crystal shutter is divided into two right and left sections, and on the basis of the sections, the shutter is allowed to open and close. With such a liquid crystal shutter, image-pickup data to be derived by the image-pickup device varies based on which of the right and left sections a light passes through, and based on the image-pickup data, an image to be generated by the image processing section varies, i.e., a parallax image for right eye or a parallax image for left eye. Because these right and left parallax images are the results of the lights passing through such two different sections of the liquid crystal shutter, and have a parallax therebetween. A predetermined display technique is used such that each eye of a user is able to view only one of these two right and left parallax images so that stereoscopic viewing is achieved.
For realizing the stereoscopic viewing as such, possible techniques include polarization and field-sequential, for example. With the polarization technique, using a display affixed with a predetermined polarization filter, right and left parallax images are alternately displayed in horizontal scan lines in the same screen, and with the field-sequential technique, the right and left parallax images are alternately displayed in a time sharing manner. Using a projector is also a possibility. That is, two projectors, which are able to emit differently-polarized image lights polarized in different two directions, are used such that each projector projects only either a right or left parallax image toward the same projection surface. For realizing the stereoscopic viewing, with both the polarization technique and the projector technique, a pair of polarized glasses is used. The polarized glasses allow the differently-polarized lights to pass therethrough, whereas with the field-sequential technique, a pair of shutter glasses is used. The shutter glasses are controlled to open/close in synchronization with display timings of the parallax images. Thus, stereoscopic display is achieved. The stereoscopic depth perception varies depending on the amount of difference, i.e., magnitude of parallax, between the right and left parallax images.